The United Nations created a 39-member advisory body to guide the world through governance issues around artificial intelligence, announced United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres Thursday.
Steve Wozniak, Elon Musk, and the world’s 500 top technologists called for a pause of advanced AI systems back in March to develop sufficient safeguards, sounding the alarm to take action for regulators around the world. The UN’s advisory body includes tech executives, government officials, and academics from around the world representing a broad array of interests.
“I have called for a global, multidisciplinary, multistakeholder conversation on the governance of AI so that its benefits to humanity – all of humanity – are maximized, and the risks contained and diminished,” said Secretary-General Guterres.
OpenAI’s chief technology officer Mira Murati, Sony CTO Hiroaki Kitano, Google senior vice president James Manyika, and Microsoft chief responsible AI officer Natasha Crampton will represent the larger tech companies along with other executives, state officials, and professors.
The AI Advisory Body’s immediate tasks are building a global consensus on risks and challenges, helping harness AI to meet sustainable development goals, and strengthening international cooperation on the governance of this new technology.
Government officials from the United States, Korea, and Kenya will help the body advise the world on AI governance. Professors and academics from Cambridge, Stanford, the University of Tokyo and more will be advising the body.
ChatGPT burst onto the market last year showing people that the future of artificial intelligence is already here. The advancement of large language models and neural networks has been quick with Microsoft already reaping the rewards in earnings. Regulators have scrambled globally to understand what this AI can do, and what safeguards should be in place.
The first meeting of the body is slated to take place Friday.